Each of these critters has their own back-story. For instance, Otto used to be an airplane auto-pilot robot, Servo was a space explorer robot who collected rock samples on Mars, and Commando Stepper was a crop harvester robot who went rogue and now wants to take over the world. They are all certified for all ages.

We’ve added a free paper toy, “Sniffles, The Frost-Breathing Dragon.” Instead of breathing fire like other dragons, he breathes frost–he freezes whatever he breathes on. As you’d expect, the cold has given him a perpetually runny nose, so his sidekick is a Box of Kleenex. You can either add him to your cart or download from the page.

Benoit Mandelbrot, the creator of fractal geometry died at the age of 85 this week. Fractals are a visual representation of an equation that is self-similar and based on recursion, and just so happen to mimic an incredible array of natural processes and formations, from mountain ranges to coral reefs, and interestingly, as the above video explains, explains not only the way branches of a tree are differentiated but how trees in a forest differentiate themselves. Pretty hot.

Mandelbrot Set featuring the song “Mandelbrot Set” by Jonathan Coulton

Here is a zoomed Mandelbrot fractal set to a song aptly entitled “Mandelbrot Set.”

Mr. Mandelbrot also did a lovely TED talk, which you can watch above.

For the geek boutique I run, Fractalspin (namesake obvious), I designed a paper toy called “Mandelbot” named after the man himself. You can download the PDF, print it out and assemble it for free.